A young woman has spoken out after she allegedly caught a phone repair shop employee sending nude photos to herself.
The 27-year-old New Zealand woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she took her phone to a Mobile Planet kiosk in Auckland’s Sylvia Park shopping centre to get her camera repaired.
However, when she got her phone back, she saw a notification that said “AirDrop failed,” along with a link to a nude photo in her camera roll that was “taken years ago” that she wanted to send to her boyfriend.
In a video posted to TikTok by friend Krisy Erin, the women confront the store manager about the alleged incident as the accused employee looks on.
Ms Erin explained that the employee had to scroll through her friend’s photos to find the one. ‘That is a huge invasion of her privacy and downright unethical behaviour.’
The manager responds to the accusation by stating that he only asked the employee to check whether the “camera was working properly.”
After the manager looked at the employee’s photos to see if he had sent the nude photo to himself, a dramatic moment occurred when the employee fainted.
However, Mrs. Erin was not convinced by the medical incident.
In a TikTok video posted by Krisy Erin, a woman is seen confronting the manager and the accused employee over the alleged violation at the New Zealand shopping mall
“It felt like a distraction, like he was trying to take the pressure off himself,” Ms Erin told the New Zealand Press Agency Stuff on Friday.
Ms Erin said that after she fainted, security asked her and her friend to go to customer service and file a complaint.
Stuff reported that the employee, who was an on-call worker, had been suspended.
The woman involved told the newspaper that she told her story to warn others.
“I knew there would be negative reactions and people would say I shouldn’t have put the photo on my phone at all, but it’s important for other women to know that this can happen,” she said.
Ms Erin alleged that the employee and his manager behaved “quite aggressively” before she began filming the TikTok videos and threatened to call security.
“They basically gaslighted her and made her feel like she was wrong. They kept denying everything and saying they didn’t look at her photos, but we just wouldn’t leave until we got to the heart of what had happened,” Ms. Erin said.
The woman saw a notification that an AirDrop of a nude photo she had on her phone had failed (stock photo)
Ms Erin said that while her friend felt ‘better’ after the incident, she was still ‘distressed, hurt and uncomfortable about the whole thing’.
“She wonders if he had access to her other photos, but she wants to raise more awareness about what happened,” Erin said.
Ms. Erin said she has since discovered that you don’t have to share your passcode when getting your phone repaired.
Mobile Planet’s management team told Stuff they took “immediate action” when they were made aware of the incident and alerted police.
“We understand the seriousness of the situation and are committed to taking responsibility towards all parties involved,” the spokespeople said.
The store’s management also claimed that they had contacted the woman to offer their “sincere apologies and express their support during this difficult time.”
However, Ms Erin said her friend had not received any such message.
Police are investigating the incident, a spokesperson told the media.
